Health Bulletin 28/May/2025

Granting relief to a group of doctors, the Madras High Court has allowed them to get admitted to super-specialist courses without completing their bond service requirements.

The HC bench comprising Justice V. Lakshminarayanan asked the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) to monitor the admission process of these doctors, further specifying that after completing their super-speciality courses, these doctors will report to DME to get bond service posting orders and complete their bond service term.

These directions were issued by the HC bench recently while considering a batch of petitions and review petitions concerning a group of doctors who urged the Court to issue directions to the authorities to return their original documents, which are necessary to get admitted to super-speciality courses.

While considering these petitions, the HC bench noted that there was no dispute regarding the fact that the doctors concerned in these pleas have undergone their post-graduation in the State of Tamil Nadu and consequently completed the course.

MBBS interns and resident doctors from Government medical colleges across Punjab are protesting against the huge cost of medical education in the State and extremely low stipend. In their agitation, the medicos staged a rally yesterday.

While the 2020 batch MBBS interns paid Rs 7.8 lakh for undergoing medical education in Punjab, they get only Rs 15,000 per month as stipend. The amount of the fee is even higher for the consecutive batches. Those who were admitted to the MBBS courses at the Government Medical Colleges (GMCs) in 2024 will have to pay Rs 9.5 lakh as their entire course fee.

The plea challenging non-payment of stipends to MBBS interns will be taken up by the Supreme Court for a hearing in July 2025, Live Law has reported.

As per the Daily, the issue concerning the stipends for doctors undergoing their MBBS internships was raised by the counsel for the petitioners before the Apex Court bench comprising CJI BR Gavai and Justice AG Masih for an urgent hearing.

The counsel informed the bench that the students were not getting any stipend at all. In this regard, the counsel submitted, "The stipend of medical students is not being given; that matter was to be listed before J Dhulia on May 19, but didn't come. Students are getting zero stipend."

Observing that the plea is currently listed before the Supreme Court bench presided by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, the CJI asked, "When is he supposed to sit in vacation?"

Altogether 192 cases of alleged medical negligence have been reported in Pune district over the last five years, according to official data from the district-level expert committee of Sassoon General Hospital (SGH) and BJ Medical College (BJMC).

The committee responsible for investigating such cases, confirmed that between 2020 and April 2025, the expert committee found negligence in 192 cases. So far this year, seven cases have been reported, and negligence has been confirmed in three of them.

The year 2023 saw the highest number of such cases, with 54 incidents reported in Pune alone. In 2024, there were 50 cases, including 46 from Pune and four from nearby districts - two from Satara, one from Ahmednagar and one from Sangli.